


the street is filled with light

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon-Typical Awfulness, Drugs, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mommy Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Requited Unrequited Love, Run-On Sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7205105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes you find yourself thinking that there's a good reason something's wrong with you, because if there was really nothing standing between you and the world, there'd be a whole lot more down in flames.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the street is filled with light

**Author's Note:**

> as much as it disagrees with me that dennis is a terrible, psychopathic, violent person and one of the few examples of bpd on television, i do agree that it makes a lot of sense with his characterization, and i hope that if the show chooses to deal with it (as they should) that they do it in a respectful way and don't make light of it.
> 
> anyway, here's some garbage

and of course this is how it only works for you. its just another part of "what makes you special, sweetheart, and no one will ever understand" like mom said. if you were trying to explain it to someone, this is how it would go.

_i._

even from the beginning, mommy never understood—no one did. she never tried to jam any of that sympathetic bullshit into your head, though, unlike the others. even when she was buying dee sweaters two sizes too big "as an investment, darling" and brushing her hair so hard it came out in clumps, she was always nice to you, her golden boy. at least to you, she was never pretending to understand. when it was thunderstorms and hurricanes inside your head, she never treated it like anything less. she never treated it at all, sure, but it was better than the pseudo-saccharine "i understand"s that you are too used to.

_vi._

you don't like the word manipulation, as much as countless childhood therapists and ex-lovers tell you that's exactly what it is. you're just helping shape people, guiding them to what you know is their best self. and if by "best self" you really mean "self that can benefit me the most", well, no one really needs to know.

_ii._

you love too hard. the stuffed elephant you found in your father's house six years ago wasn't the first mr. tibbs, or the second, or the third. they only every lasted a year or so, their longevity growing as you did, but it was only so long until a head popped off, or a leg, or an eye. even when you don't drag him around by the ear anymore, just lay him next to the pillows at the head of your bed, mom says you sleep with a death grip, and he always falls apart. you always keep the eyes, though—you have a glass jar in your room still with dozens of buttons. this does nothing to help the serial killer facade you've cultivated over the years, but that's good for you too, because you don't know what would happen if you loved a person too hard and you don't want to find out.

_iv._

one of the first things you learn about mac is that he's a very tactile person. you've known each other for all of a minute and he's already got an arm around your neck like you were brothers. you don't even know his name yet, just that he's the skinny kid in the oversized leather jacket who deals under the bleachers, but you find it okay for some reason. the only person you're used to touching on a daily basis is dee, sad as it is. this kid, though, this kid... it's something. he convinces you to join his "gang" that's really just him and the grubby kid tearing up grass behind him, and you convince yourself this was the plan all along.

_xviii._

when mac leans in, it's painfully obvious. you can think of at least five noticeable times where you've been in the middle of celebrating some success or a lapse in between credits on movie nights, where it is suddenly soft quiet and mac's face is closer than it ever is. the moment is always broken, of course, by another person or the hissing static at the end of the tape, but those moments are preserved in your mind. they are marbles, dull and a little worn from turning them over in your mind again and again, but still shiny and delicate. they are obvious, yes, but nonetheless appreciated.

_ix._

it's the week after orientation and the frat guys have already made you one of their own—you won't say "brothers" after you mention it to mac and he gets up in arms about something about bonding and you'll admit the word feels awkward on your tongue too. initiation isn't nearly as bad as every b-rated slasher flick you've seen implied, but you're used to disappointment. nothing is ever theatrical enough for you.

no, it's after initiation, at your first  _real_ party (friday nights in charlie's basement don't count) that you find yourself getting more hammered than you thought was possible. when you realize you're definitely not having as much fun as everyone else, you stumble back to your room. your roommate isn't back yet, but for the first time you wish he was. the last thing you want is to be alone, so you call up mac and he answers the phone groggy and half-asleep and you make him talk at you until you calm down because suddenly the room is too hot and the ground too far away but he's like an anchor and you feel yourself drift slowly to the bottom, the ground murkier and murkier beneath you, and when you wake up he's still there, probably sitting on the floor in the kitchen beneath the corded phone. you have no idea what you said, but he calls every night after that, just to talk about your classes or whatever weird rodent charlie caught that day, and it becomes routine.

_xvi._

there are so many times where two of you have to pose as a couple for a scheme or plot or whatever, and more often than not, that means you and mac. there was the mortgage crisis, the gay newlyweds spin-off, the party at frank's old company, not to mention the numerous times you've used the engagement or honeymoon excuses for free champagne at restaurants and first class upgrades on planes. for someone who blusters a lot about the "sanctity of marriage", mac sure doesn't seem to mind when your arm wraps around his waist to show off your fake rings.

_xiv._

mac admires you for being strong and holier-than-thou, a leader and a shining example of the pinnacle of human perfection. you admire him for being everything you're not.

_v._

by the time you're fourteen you know how to read people like a book. does it make making friends that much harder? sure. but is it worth it? definitely. linear thinking was never your strong suit, and you find it hard to keep track of the right things in the right order sometimes, but this you know for certain. you were fourteen, it was summer, you were going into high school, and you needed to know how people worked. you stumbled through some of your mother's self-help books and those sherlock holmes stories until you got a good enough grasp on how people think. the rest was just trial and error on dee and your semi-popular, definitely-lesser friends.

and everything goes great, til you meet mac, and he's so insanely easy to figure out that you almost want to tell him, for his sake. you feel almost guilty, although you know that's not true, for taking advantage of him. he feels more human to you, more valuable, more than just an empty brain you can fill with whatever you want. there's no challenge in it, so you leave him alone. that's what you tell yourself as you let him tag along on your everything. let him be him. at least this way you know you're the only one manipulating him.

_iii._

motives are the only important thing, more than the words someone says or the way they stand or any other psychoanalysis bullshit they tried to get you to learn in college. (it was only a minor, who really cared that much anyway?) you find that everything is so much easier when you know what other people need—or at least, what  _they_ think they need. when you know what they want, it's so much easier to convince someone you can give it to them. that's why you guard yourself so closely and keep those idiosyncrasies to yourself—if they know what you want, you can't know who they are.

_xi._

one time mac kisses you. you think it's mac, anyway. well, you _know_ you and mac have kissed, you just aren't entirely sure who's to blame—or thank, as it may be, you still haven't decided. it is a wednesday night and you're visiting home. you decided to tell your family you were coming back a day later than you really were so you wouldn't overlap with your father's business trip home and deal with his squawking shit. instead, you spend the day hiding out in the mac's new-to-him truck that one of his dad's drug mules bought him.

mac wasn't that good of a driver, but wouldn't let you drive his baby, so you just stayed in the parking lot behind his mom's house. after eight cigarettes and two bottle of peach vodka later, you're sliding your body across the threadbare blankets, touching your lips softly to mac's, ignoring his and your shaking hands both. after one blackout and one stern self-talking to, you're striding through the front door of casa de los reynolds, returning to your life as the prodigal son, annoying the shit out of dee.

_viii._

you're the one who started the check-ins. people assume that anyway, when they find out, but where they get it wrong is when they chalk it up to nothing but another example of your longstanding control issues. it isn't like that, actually far from it, but it's better to let them assume it's because you're too strong than the opposite. you have an image to maintain, after all, and a mask to keep firmly on.

_xii._

mac accumulates a lot of shit very easily. it becomes a problem when you go to move in together and it takes mac an hour to pack up just the shit under his bed. you put your foot down when you see how much of it is just faded newspaper clippings of his dad's mugshots. in fact, just to make things easier, you just tell him to leave it all. with the graduation money you got from frank, you've got more than enough to get yourselves a place full furnished. you go shopping together, throwing coordinating sheets and towels into the cart, and when he wants to buy these weird industrial shelves, you just hand him the card. mac is in charge of random furniture and you're in charge of knick-knacks and assorted bibelot, mostly because mac doesn't know that word, and you're the tastemaker of the two.

_vii._

when you take mac under your wing and convince the cool kids to only buy from him, you're helping him. when you forget to mention mac's only girlfriend ever coming on to you, you're helping him. when you throw away all mac's torn up jeans and buy him new ones, you're helping him. when you don't tell mac you threw away his rejection letter from penn, you're helping him. when you get convince your dad to get mac a job working as a janitor in his building and keep him from getting fired when he shows up two hours late every morning, you're helping him. when you keep it to yourself all the times you've wanted to tell him how important he is to you, you're helping him. it just so happens that you're also helping yourself. most of the time.

_xiii._

you're very good at hiding your emotions. dee always jokes about how mac worships you almost as much as he does his god (which mac protests is "absolutely ridiculous and just plain blasphemy, dee, jesus christ") and it's true, but not the only truth. it's just as true that you worship him. worship is not the best word, no, but it's close enough. they're right when they say mac loves you, studies your every move to emulate, but what they don't notice is how you do almost exactly the same. something about his absolute normalcy, his constant cognitive dissonance, his earnest praise draws you in.

_xix._

when you lean in, it's never literally; it's more like letting your mask slip. sometimes its because you're too tired to maintain the facade, like after the five days you're convinced you've been sent the next scripture and stay up all hours of the night scribbling furiously before your body gives out and mac has to carry you to the couch where he can watch over you. sometimes it's too stressful to contemplate anything else, like the time last february when the power went out while you're on the subway... and on second thought, maybe you do lean in as much as he does.

_xv._

you have to get your appendix out the year after you graduate, just a few months after you and mac move in together, and he completely freaks out. you have no problem; yes, you're always in control of your body, you just decided now would be a good time to get this over with. he's completely out of it, though. something about a distrust of hospitals keeps him hovering at your side constantly. when one of the nurses tries to tell him visiting hours are over, he almost cries. she lets him stay out of pity and you wake up in the middle of the night to his head resting awkwardly on the corner of your bed by your elbow. his hair is drooping forward, the day having taken its toll on the suffocating gel, and you're curious as to what it feels like so you run a hand through it. thankfully he doesn't wake, just hum quietly and tilt towards the touch. your hand leaves to hold his, the other coming up softly to rest on his back. it's almost like a hug, and you fall asleep.

_x._

charlie and dee and the other friends you're sure you had at one point have a habit of getting too close. no one you know seems to respect personal boundaries, and they always act way too hurt when you tell them so. maybe this is because you telling them so mainly consists of lashing out, screaming, and clenching your fists so hard you've drawn blood a couple of times. it's not your fault they don't seem to get it. no one ever seems to try, anyway. you drink to dull the edge, drink to keep your claws in, and it works sometimes, enough to justify the next night, and the next, ad infinitum.

_xvii._

here is another difference. you file it alongside your ability to detach yourself from your emotions and what happened with the buzzer, content to save it for a rainy day to dwell on and reassure yourself that you really are as singular as you assume. the splintering affect that stupid sound effect had on your thoughts is shelved right there next to the time mac had all your blankets dry-cleaned for you after you had the flu. it felt like that warm fuzzy feeling they talked about in all those trashy romance novels dee had as a teenager, but metaphorically—as they seemed to imply—and literally.

_xx._

it happens in a tunnel. the conductor (those still exist?) comes over the pa and says ice built up over the power lines and knocked quite a few of them down. dee and frank immediately press themselves to the window. they start trying to pry the doors open, the car empty of anyone sane enough to notice the emergency release button right next to dee's elbow—even if they do get it open, it wouldn't do any good, since you're in a part of the tunnel too skinny for people to crawl through. charlie is "talking" to the rats he thinks he sees outside the window. he's muttering something about chewing through cables, and you want so badly to point out that would be extremely counterproductive in the event that the power comes back, but it's one of the empty days, so you just sit back and wait for him to realize.

you and mac stay in your spots, mac sitting and you leaning against the window next to him. you're loosely holding onto one of the straps hanging from the ceiling, leaning over more than next to him, mid-conversation about dee's latest trainwreck of a haircut. from your vantage point, you can see when he shivers; he's only wearing a hoodie for some reason, and you didn't say anything earlier because you were just glad it wasn't a t-shirt. he stands when the car lurches forward a little, but the voice comes back to tell you it's nothing, and he goes back to shivering. it gets to the point where it's too prevalent to ignore, so you pull him close enough to lean your foreheads together and rubs his thinly covered biceps. he crosses his arms and tries to look like he doesn't care, but he's leaning closer. something within him is holding him back, even when you can hear his teeth literally chattering. you give him one of your "it's not gay, oh my god, mac, relax" looks. you've gotten pretty good at. mac sways closer and your noses brush.

no one else notices, of course, dee's face squished into the window as frank tries to climb her shoulders, charlie gesturing to the rats. mac almost doesn't notice either, as you lean in even closer, just the tiniest amount needed to push you both over the edge. it is slow and easy. his lips are beyond chapped, gratingly so, but you can't bring yourself to care. it must have been fuzzed by both the alcohol and time, but you can't believe how much you missed  _this_ , just being close to him, breathing the same air. his gloveless hands find themselves to your waist, under your coat, and the shock of cold that come with bring you out of it. you take half a step back, the same time the train jolts back to life, and stumble into the divider next to the other door. the others are too busy cheering at the movement. mac sits back down in his cold plastic seat slowly. you pick yourself up off the floor and sit next to him and his hand finds itself in your pocket alongside yours. he squeezes it too tight and it stops feeling cold.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "[pure gold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irWTWTvNuMQ)" by the mountain goats. because there aren't enough macdennis fics with mountain goat lyric titles.
> 
> i suggest reading it in the order i've arranged, then in numerical order, which is also kinda chronological. i listened to a lot of the mountain goats and elliott smith writing this. i love mac. bye.
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)


End file.
